Colin Allred’s failure should remind Dems that plenty of Americans aren’t Republicans | Opinion
The brain sending the commands to the fingers typing on the keyboard writing this story is thoroughly rotted from two unfortunate sources. The first corrosion comes from spending far too much time on the internet, which I have been doing since I was 10, and the other is from attempting to follow Texas Democratic Party politics, which I have been doing since October.
For these reasons, I can identify with Olivia Julianna, a 21-year-old Houstonian social media-oriented influencer and activist who came to prominence in 2021 by using her vast online following to raise $2 million for abortion rights. Real people are behind the phones she speaks to so well, obviously, but at Colin Allred’s election night watch party, I watched her try to rally troops in flesh and blood. Spinning what would eventually be a decisive, if not embarrassing, loss to her audience didn’t go as well.
“The amount of people who mobilized on knocking getting people out to early vote, we’re doing a great job” — words easiest to believe when you’re enjoying an endless positive feedback loop on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) — “because we’ve been able to build such a strong coalition, Democrats, Republicans and independents, and it’s that coalition that is going to beat Ted Cruz,” she said.
That coalition didn’t beat Cruz. (It didn’t beat Donald Trump, either.) It underperformed compared to Beto O’Rourke, who also lost to Cruz, but not nearly as bad as Allred lost on Tuesday night. It is increasingly unlikely that this coalition exists, in Allred’s state or his country. Does this coalition exist at all? It is an open question, or at least was until Election Day.
There isn’t so much to “learn” watching this Democratic Party’s results, just as there’s little to learn from attending this very sad party. The muted claps I witnessed for every Kamala Harris victory across the Connecticuts and Oregons of the country, all while Congress and the White House slowly faded away, don’t tell us that much about our country that I wouldn’t have known watching cable news. The scene is pretty sad, coping Allred voters watching their party slip away.
But I am grateful for Julianna’s words because they sum up a tactical error that America is hopefully strong enough to withstand until the next campaign from Cruz, Vance, or, let’s get crazy here, Trump. Critically, if the Democratic Party is to exist, it must show it believes in something that stretches far beyond what you think will win Republican voters annoyed with our next president. Because, as Zeteo’s Prem Thakker wrote on X so succinctly, “Why vote for a diet Republican when you can vote for the real thing”?
When Allred addressed the crowd, he emphasized that his campaign was worth the fight. Despite his campaign lighting your MSNBC-watching mother’s money on fire — Allred raised tens of millions more than Cruz — I agree. But I disagree with his premise about why the fight exists. “We are a great country,” he said. “Nobody needs to make us great again. We are great because we are good.”
Quite simply, not enough people believe that. The Republicans people like Allred and Julianna say they want in their coalition don’t believe that.
Obviously, it’s implied the name dominating their party’s slogan — Make America Great Again — but it’s also shown in their willingness to suspend natural disgust about a man who hates because he is ready to tell voters their problems have scapegoats.
Further, trying to appeal to those voters by bending rightward, spending your time accepting and retrofitting Cruz talking points was never going to work.
Borrowing Cruz’s flawed, bullying takes on transgender people – don’t forget Allred repeating Cruz’s “boys in girls sports” trope, allowed the incumbent senator to correctly paint his challenger as a flip-flopper when compared to the legislative record he tried to hide. As of 2022, 64% of the country believes trans people deserve increased legal protection. Allred didn’t close the gap, he just pissed off his most hopeful, vulnerable constituents, and his party’s hope is that a betrayed voting bloc is just as motivated or more to get out the vote next cycle.
Likewise, Allred had an opportunity to burnish his reputation as one of the few voices in Congress to question America’s unfettered military aid to Israel as the American ally functionally bankrolls what the United Nations describes as “indiscriminate and disproportionate” bombing of Palestinians. Beyond leaning into a very popular policy ask that hardly any politician in this country has taken on, I believe it would have been an extremely popular political play to Colin Allred constituents sick of forever wars and unmoved by, say, a Liz Cheney endorsement. I am more certain standing his ground would have meant the world to the Arab and Muslim voters disturbed by how little the ruling party appears to value their lives.
But, in almost every follow-up comment on Israel’s conduct throughout the Middle East, Allred, like Harris, continued insisting that Israel had the right to defend itself, with no strings attached.
Maybe offering a clear alternative instead of skewing toward a direction that doesn’t clumsily attach GOP frameworks of societal problems to Democratic campaigns is always a loser in Texas. I say that humbly because I am new here, and I’m reminded of how O’Rourke stuck to his guns by promising to take them away from some of his constituents. Then again, Beto’s close loss was vastly superior to this blowout.
Democrats in Texas and America absolutely need to keep knocking on doors, as Julianna said they were. I am intensely curious about how many of these doors are the walk-up apartments, housing projects and crammed one-floor homes of people who may not represent the donor base but are also disaffected by the current state of our politics. I’m also curious of how many people who knocked came from those communities, ready to speak their proverbial or literal language. With rooted presence and policy prescriptions that speak to their immediate needs, these homes possess votes that can be won. Meanwhile, if likely Republicans courted by the party weren’t slamming literal doors in your face, they certainly did in the voting booth.
Fortunately, bleak as this day may seem for Democrats, like Allred said, Texas is worth fighting for. And they might win if they can remember that Republicans aren’t the only Texans. Or Americans.
This story was originally published November 6, 2024 at 1:54 PM with the headline "Colin Allred’s failure should remind Dems that plenty of Americans aren’t Republicans | Opinion."
